You can really tell that the show runners had no idea what to do with Bran's storry. Using him as a glorified means to reveal Jon's Targaryen heritage, and the Wight Walkers somehow breaking through the Weirwood's protection.
I don't think Bran is going to get to go south again. To take up the mantle of the Three Eyed Raven, to become the greenseer at the top of the world, is a commitment that separates you from the rest of humanity. He may speak to his family again, through beasts, and the whispers on the wind, but he might as well be a ghost to them.
Maybe he will reveal Jon's parentage to him in a dream beyond life. It seems that him and Blood Raven have plans for Theon's life in one of the sample chapters, though they'll probably have to settle for a different sacrafice. Whatever Bran's role is going forward, I think it will be in the caves beneath the weirwood tree.
Greenseers & the Weirwood Network — Keepers of Memory
“A man’s life fades, but the trees remember.”
Among the oldest traditions of the North are stories of rare individuals known as greenseers. While the Citadel has long regarded such figures as legend, the persistence of their accounts across centuries has led some scholars to question whether these tales preserve fragments of forgotten truth.
Greenseers are said not merely to predict the future, but to perceive the past and present through means unknown to ordinary men.
The Gift of Greensight
Greensight is described as a form of perception beyond normal senses. Those who possessed it reportedly experienced visions, dreams, and knowledge not gained through learning.
Traditions attribute to greenseers:
Prophetic dreams
Visions of distant places
Awareness of events yet to come
Insight drawn from nature itself
Unlike prophecy in country tales, these visions were often unclear and symbolic.
The Weirwood Trees
Central to the belief in greenseers are the weirwoods — pale-barked trees with blood-red leaves, commonly found in the North.
They are notable for:
Carved faces known as heart trees
Use as sacred sites of the Old Gods
Presence in ancient groves and godswoods
Northern customs holds that vows sworn before a heart tree are witnessed by the gods.
Some traditions claim the faces allow the world to be watched.
The Weirwood Network
Certain legends suggest all weirwoods are connected in ways not understood by modern scholars.
Through them, greenseers were sad to:
Obeserve distant lands
Witness past events
Perceive hidden truths
If true, the weirwoods would function not as ordinary trees, but as a living record of history.
Wargs & Skinchangers
Greenseers are closely associated with wargs — individuals capable of entering the minds of animals.
Accounts describe abilities including:
Sharing senses with wolves and birds
Directing animal movement
Experiencing another creature’s perception
The relationship between warg and greenseers remains unclear; some sources suggest a greenseers is a rare and more powerful form of skinchanger.
Maester Debate
The Citadel traditionally dismisses greensight as superstition. However, several maesters have noted that consistent accounts appear in isolated northern traditions separated by centuries.
Possible explanations proposed:
Misunderstood natural phenomena
Lost cultural practices
Forgotten magic
No definitive conclusion has ever been reached.
Legacy
Even in later centuries, many northern houses maintain godswoods and pray before weirwoods. Unlike the Faith of the Seven, the Old Gods have no priests or temples — only the silent trees.
If the greenseers once watched through the forests of Westeros, then the past of the realm may never have truly vanished.
Thinking about how a thousand eyes and one is used as a threat by Bloodraven to inspire fear
A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees - Bran III ADWD
Bran also thinks of his powers as using a thousand eyes after Bloodraven tells him about it.
"If Robb has to go, watch over him," Bran entreated the old gods, as they watched him with the heart tree's red eyes, "and watch over his men, Hal and Quent and the rest, and Lord Umber and Lady Mormont and the other lords. And Theon too, I suppose. Watch them and keep them safe, if it please you, gods. Help them defeat the Lannisters and save Father and bring them home." - Bran VI AGOT
A leaf drifted down from above, brushed his brow, and landed in the pool. It floated on the water, red, five-fingered, like a bloody hand. "… Bran," the tree murmured. - A Ghost in Winterfell ADWD
It ends up being Bran watching over Theon and helps him remember he's not Reek but Theon Greyjoy.
"I dreamed of Bran," Sansa had whispered to him. "I saw him smiling." - Eddard V
There was something wild about a godswood; even here, in the heart of the castle at the heart of the city, you could feel the old gods watching with a thousand unseen eyes.
Sansa had favored her mother's gods over her father's. She loved the statues, the pictures in leaded glass, the fragrance of burning incense, the septons with their robes and crystals, the magical play of the rainbows over altars inlaid with mother-of-pearl and onyx and lapis lazuli. Yet she could not deny that the godswood had a certain power too. Especially by night. Help me, she prayed, send me a friend, a true knight to champion me - Sansa II ACOK
Here's a moment of Sansa thinking of a thousand eyes and it does give her some comfort in the same godswood she dreamed of Bran.
In contrast to Brynden, Bran's thousand eyes inspires hope and bravery.
Are you struggling with an existential crisis? Go as Alys! I think she'll know (how to help).
This video highlights the magic of Alys Rivers and her home, Harrenhal. Alys Rivers is a mysterious figure from George R R Martin's book "Fire and Blood," and the earlier short story, "The Princess and the Queen," adapted into the hit HBO Max series "House of the Dragon," prequels to "Game of Thrones" and "A Song of Ice and Fire."
She is a woodswitch, a healer, a skinchanger, possibly even a greenseer. She inhabits the castle Harrenhal, on the shores of the Crater Lake, the God's Eye. The god's Eye, with the Isle of Faces at its center, home to the Green Men and the largest Weirwood grove in Westeros, is a nexus of magic. The castle is reportedly cursed, likely at the behest of the Old Gods that inhabit the Weirwood trees, and their green men protectors.
It was built by Harren the black upon a site of destroyed Weirwoods in defiance of the Old Gods. Some say, part of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" prophecy that led the castle to be ruined by Aegon the conqueror was a dream sent to him by the old Gods to stop Harren and his path of destruction.
The music in this video is my cover with the vocal talents of Alexandra (see the Aryandmershow YT channel) of "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane," written by their singer, Grace Slick. Alys Rivers is too perfect a fit to Slick's haunting lyrics.
Thanks to the artists, @myredplanet, @chillyravenart, @klaradox @hylora and more!
